Russia investigation: What's next for congressional probes?

Special counsel Robert Mueller has informed President Donald Trump's attorneys that the president is not currently considered a criminal target in the Russia investigation, according to a person familiar with the conversation. (April 4)
AP

WASHINGTON – As the House Intelligence Committee moves to close its bitterly partisan Russia investigation this month, its Senate counterpart is poised to offer Americans some rare bipartisan answers about what happened in the 2016 election.

The Senate Intelligence Committee — which has conducted the least fractious congressional inquiry — is likely to release a series of Russia reports in the weeks ahead.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to release transcripts soon of its interviews with Donald Trump Jr. and others who attended a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian attorney who was supposed to provide "dirt" on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Here's a look at what to expect next from the three committees investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Senate Intelligence Committee

The committee's reports will attempt to answer three key questions: Were U.S. intelligence agencies right when they concluded in January 2017 that the Russian government tried to help Donald Trump and hurt former secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race? What was the extent of Russians' manipulation of social media to try to influence voters? Was there any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin?

Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., presented a united front, jointly releasing the panel's first public report last month. That report called on Congress to pass urgent funding to help states improve the cyber security of their voting systems to thwart Russian hackers.

Shortly after that report was issued, Congress approved $380 million in grants for states to strengthen their election security. Any new voting machines states buy should have a voter-verified paper trail and no WiFi capability that can be hacked, the committee recommended.

House Intelligence Committee

This panel has a reputation for extreme partisanship, which will continue to the end as the Republican majority prepares to release its final report this month over the objections of Democratic members.

GOP leaders said their report will conclude there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

It's not clear whether the report will repeat Republicans' initial assertion that U.S. intelligence agencies were wrong in concluding that the Kremlin tried to help Trump and hurt Clinton. Republicans split over that controversial assessment. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said it was clear from the evidence that Russia tried to harm Clinton. Russian President Vladimir Putin viewed Clinton as an enemy for challenging the legitimacy of his election while she was secretary of State.

Democrats plan to issue a dissenting opinion, emphasizing what they say is evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. They are likely to list witnesses that were never called and documents that were never obtained by the GOP majority.

Democrats are taking the unusual step of trying to continue the Russia investigation on their own. They have one witness who has agreed to talk to them: whistle-blower Christopher Wylie, former research director at Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis firm hired by the Trump campaign that is accused of improperly sharing the personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users.

Senate Judiciary Committee

This committee's Russia inquiry was headed toward the same deeply divided end as the House Intelligence Committee, but it took bipartisan action in recent days that may indicate renewed cooperation among its members.

Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and senior Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California sent a joint letter March 27 to an attorney for the Trump campaign, requesting the emails of former campaign aides John Mashburn and Rick Dearborn. Dearborn's name was raised in connection with Russian efforts to meet with members of the Trump campaign.

The request was significant in part because it came from both Grassley and Feinstein, who had been writing separate requests for documents and witness testimony in recent months. In December, Grassley took to the Senate floor to blast Democrats on the panel for refusing to go after any potential misdeeds involving Clinton and the Obama administration.

"True bipartisan oversight is impossible unless it is a two-way street," the Iowa Republican said.

At a committee meeting in January, Grassley promised to release the transcripts of closed-door witness testimony about the Trump Tower meeting involving Trump Jr. and the Russians. Grassley hopes to make those transcripts public soon after completing the process of redacting any classified information.

The transcripts will include interviews with Trump Jr.; music promoter Rob Goldstone, who organized the meeting; Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin; Ike Kaveladze, who works for a Russian real estate developer; and Anatoli Samochornov, the translator for Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The Russia-based lawyer answered the committee's questions in writing rather than appearing in person, and her written responses will be included in the transcripts.

The committee did not interview two other meeting participants: former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort or Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and adviser. They were interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee.